Alternatively, experiences are part of what mind is. Thus homunculus-free deflation, "what appears" is sometimes one end of worldly interaction, yours. Less excess of mental furniture at least. — jorndoe

That attempts to say a great deal in two sentences. I way I would put it is that the domain of experience always entails a subjective pole, which is not in itself given in experience. The problem with most scientific realists is to deny that, to 'bracket out the subject' whilst not seeing that the subject is still intrinsic.

It is not science's business to try to reproduce your sense of consciousness and feeling, but rather to attempt to explain how such phenomena could arise in physical systems. It hasn't been exhaustively explained yet, but that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that it could be.

It seems that you don't want it to be possible because that would undermine your presumptions about the nature of life and death. So you always seem to be coming at the inquiry from a perspective steeped in confirmation bias, and that is not consonant with the scientific spirit.

I'm arguing from a perspective which is critical of the assumption that science is all-knowing even in principle. This is a philosophy forum, and it is the appropriate forum for such questions. If you're not interested in philosophy, then why post here? There's an absolutely first-rate physics forum, where I also post from time to time. But if I wanted to discuss metaphysics, which is what this thread is titled, I wouldn't do that on Physics Forum, because it wouldn't be the appropriate forum, would it?

Who says science is all-knowing even in principle? You're criticizing science for not being able to explain consciousness from the point of view of how it feels (to you or any of us, which will be different in each case); but that has never been its remit. So your criticism is philosophically misplaced, based as it is on a category error.

Who says science is all-knowing even in principle? — Janus

It is not science's business to try to reproduce your sense of consciousness and feeling, but rather to attempt to explain how such phenomena could arise in physical systems. It hasn't been exhaustively explained yet, but that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that it could be. — Janus

It is not science's business to try to reproduce your sense of consciousness and feeling, but rather to attempt to explain how such phenomena could arise in physical systems. It hasn't been exhaustively explained yet, but that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that it could be. — Janus

Nowhere there have I said, or even implied, that science is all-knowing, even in principle. Discussions would be much easier if you were to respond to what I have actually said, not to what you somehow imagine I am saying.

It [i.e. nature of consciousness] hasn't been exhaustively explained yet, but that fact doesn't preclude the possibility that it could be. — Janus

Sorry, but I took this statement to imply that science might, in fact, be all-knowing in principle. Are you not saying that?

But this is more what I had in mind:

The idea that science has not yet fully explained consciousness is far from justification that science cannot explain it. (Indeed, I'd say the ability to make progress puts the odds well in favour of, if not complete explanation, sufficient explanation.) I was essentially parodying metaphysical discussions in which precisely that fallacy is evident. I think you may have taken me to endorse viewpoints I was in fact deriding. My fault, of course: insufficient winkyfaces. — Kenosha Kid

, I don't think my comment was scientific realism, just deflating some inflation, the apparently universalizing self-dependence (a hallmark of idealism).
Of course, there are likely many dependencies on me, say, if I chat with someone then that chat couldn't take place without me.
Isn't self-awareness given (to some), or am I misunderstanding your comment?
OK, no one likes solipsism, so I guess we'll just use the generic term "subject".
None of which entails any universally intrinsic subject(s).
Are you converging on the old mind conundrum (Levine, Chalmers), or maybe you just like your ever-present homunculi? :)

OK, firstly to say that science might be all-knowing in principle would not be the same as to say that science is all-knowing in principle. Secondly to say that something might be exhaustively explained is not necessarily to say that it is exhaustively known, because, as is acknowledged in science, any explanation might be later falsified.In other words an explanation might be exhaustive within a paradigm, but the paradigm itself may come to be superseded.

I doubt that anything at all, even, for example, geological phenomena, could be exhaustively explained, in any case, or at least could be known to be exhaustively explained. How would we ever know that something has been exhaustively explained? On the other hand, something could be exhaustively explained if there was, irrespective of the impossibility of our knowing it, no further true explanation possible.

Are you converging on the old mind conundrum (Levine, Chalmers), or maybe you just like your ever-present homunculi? :) — jorndoe

I understand the 'homunculi' argument, but I think it's misconceived.

Isn't self-awareness given (to some), or am I misunderstanding your comment? — jorndoe

The basic point in many of these discussions is like this - let me illustrate it with reference to a comment from another thread, which is also about metaphysics:

But in ordinary and scientific usage (which assumes neither Platonism nor Nominalism), the natural world is separate and prior to our ideas about it. — Andrew M

That is an innocuous enough and sensible statement. And on face value, it's perfectly obvious: we all know the world and everything in it, pre-exists us and we will pre-decease it, and it will all go on happily, regardless.

However when it comes to a philosophical analysis, we're looking at the whole thing from a different (and I hope deeper) perspective.

Here's a passage I present frequently in this context. It comes from Magee's book on Schopenhauer, in a section where Magee is discussing Schopenhauer's defense of Kant.

'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.

Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. — Wayfarer

Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107

It's important to understand what Schopenhauer means by his 'vorstellung' (usually represented as 'representation'.) He's not saying, like Locke was saying, that ideas represent objects. Nothing like that. It's closer to saying that the whole cognitive act, our whole act of knowing, and what we take as the external world, is really a creation of the mind - and that this is what constitutes knowledge (see the first paragraph).

But that *doesn't* say that 'the world is all in your mind'. That perspective comes from thinking you can stand outside of this whole process. But you can't stand outside it, as we are that process of knowing. I know it's a very contentious claim and a difficult argument.

How would we ever know that something has been exhaustively explained? On the other hand, something could be exhaustively explained if there was, irrespective of the impossibility of our knowing it, no further true explanation possible. — Janus

Let's not loose focus in what is already a difficult discussion. I was basically taking issue with Kenosha Kid, who as you know has recently joined. KK seems highly educated, extremely articulate, excellent polemicist. But he's preaching the gospel of scientism, and naturally I'm going to take issue with it. You're in the crossfire, so to speak. ;-)

But anyway - this issue touches on the Chalmer's 'Hard Problem of Consciousness'. You keep saying, it's obvious science can't explain or encompass the first-person nature of experience, but nevertheless, that is what is at stake in that whole argument, and it's been the subject of a lot of debate, many books, arguments, and scientific papers. So it's not that obvious even though when you see through it or understand it, it might appear obvious. Apparently that 'aha' moment has happened for David Chalmers, but never for Daniel Dennett, who are the two main protagonists in the debate.

Perhaps not so much "in the crossfire" as occupying a position beyond the two poles represented by your position and KK's; assuming, that is, that the latter's position is "scientistic", which I haven't read it as being (although admittedly I haven't read through all of KK's posts thoroughly).

What I have taken issue with in your position, what I see as the category error, is exemplified in this:

You keep saying, it's obvious science can't explain or encompass the first-person nature of experience, — Wayfarer

So, I am pointing out a distinction which you seem to be missing: that between explaining the phenomenon of first person experience from a physically causal perspective and explaining it from the first person perspective itself. The latter is not the business of science at all, so it is a category error to criticise science for not being able to do something outside its purview; much as it would be to criticise poetry for not being able to explain quantum physics or geology. Apropos of this distinction see Sellar's ideas of "the space of causes" and " the space of reasons".

Changing the tune a bit—but in line with the thread’s topic, and mainly oriented at @Kenosha Kid posts on this thread (haven't read all of them):

[...]explaining the phenomenon of first person experience from a physically causal perspective[...] — Janus

How is the very nature of causation a topic that is in the purview of the empirical sciences—rather than in that of the philosophical branch termed metaphysics?

To me this is a Hume 101 question. Succinctly explained, a cause is not a percept—and so cannot be empirical (as empiricism is understood in modernity).

This is not to deny that empirical science uses metaphysical understandings of causation in it analyses. It is instead to try to make the point that the empirical sciences are themselves grounded in metaphysical understandings of reality—minimally, via their use of certain notions of causation and their simultaneous denunciation of other notions of causation (for example, the avoidance, if not outright denial, of teleological causation, and hence of purpose, in all aspects of biological evolution and all other scientific fields).

Modern mainstream science—and, maybe more importantly, the worldview that often gets referred to as “scientism” and is just as often taken to be synonymous to both physicalism and realism—would be impossible sans non-empirical metaphysical claims and the metaphysical worldview(s) that accompany these. Because causes are not percepts (are not observable sensory information), the metaphysical claims regarding causation upheld by modern science cannot of themselves be the study of the empirical sciences—but instead serve as foundation of understandings upon which the empirical sciences operate.

Ps. IMO, hence the boogieman of not allowing for things such as teleological causation in our contemplations of reality: the fear that such would undermine science and, by extension, our very understandings of reality.

It's important to understand what Schopenhauer means by his 'vorstellung' (usually represented as 'representation'.) He's not saying, like Locke was saying, that ideas represent objects. Nothing like that. It's closer to saying that the whole cognitive act, our whole act of knowing, and what we take as the external world, is really a creation of the mind - and that this is what constitutes knowledge (see the first paragraph).

But that *doesn't* say that 'the world is all in your mind'. That perspective comes from thinking you can stand outside of this whole process. But you can't stand outside it, as we are that process of knowing. I know it's a very contentious claim and a difficult argument. — Wayfarer

The realist argument is that we perceive and understand the world as human beings. There is no view from nowhere.

So, I am pointing out a distinction which you seem to be missing: that between explaining the phenomenon of first person experience from a physically causal perspective and explaining it from the first person perspective itself. The latter is not the business of science at all, so it is a category error to criticise science for not being able to do something outside its purview; much as it would be to criticise poetry for not being able to explain quantum physics or geology. Apropos of this distinction see Sellar's ideas of "the space of causes" and " the space of reasons". — Janus

Doesn't "fully explain consciousness" imply both? So if the scientisitc approach asserts that science has the capacity to, or will have the capacity to, do something which "is not the business of science at all", (i.e. understand the first person perspective), by claiming that it could fully understand consciousness, then this is a mistaken assertion.

:up:

The realist argument is that we perceive and understand the world as human beings. There is no view from nowhere. — Andrew M

Given the attempted granularity of the discussion, I'd call this facile. It implies, for example, that all the means and methods for understanding natural science are founded/grounded in the being of human beings. Hmm. I guess when the aliens finally come to rescue us from our follies that we'll have nothing in common with them - yes?

Edit: Even jackasses like beer.

The realist argument is that we perceive and understand the world as human beings. There is no view from nowhere. — Andrew M

Thomas Nagel’s primary aim in his book The View from Nowhere is to explore the various philosophical puzzles that arise from the tension between the subjective and objective standpoint. The subjective standpoint is the personal perspective of an individual person; it is her view of the world “from the inside,” the world as she sees it; it is her own private window on the world, so to speak. The objective standpoint is the impersonal perspective a person adopts when she conceives of the world “from the outside,” not as it appears to her but as it really is. From the subjective standpoint, a person is at the center of her world; from the objective standpoint, she is simply one of many people who all see the world as she does. Thus, Nagel also characterizes the objective standpoint as “centerless”; someone who looks at the world objectively strives to take in “the view from nowhere.”

Nagel is convinced that the tension between the subjective and the objective standpoints surfaces in many of the enduring questions of philosophy.

I agree with him. That's what I was referrring to. Many of the arguments in this and other threads are based on the conviction that science delivers just such a view.

So if the scientisitc approach asserts that science has the capacity to, or will have the capacity to, do something which "is not the business of science at all", (i.e. understand the first person perspective), by claiming that it could fully understand consciousness, then this is a mistaken assertion. — Metaphysician Undercover

:ok:

Apropos of Schopenhauer etc, there's a current media article “Reality” is constructed by your brain. The first part is mainly about optical illusions, but towards the end it gets into philosophically significant territory in talking about how people's inclinations and prior experience influence what they see.

You can’t completely remove bias from the brain. “You can’t change the fact that we’ve all grown up in different worlds,” Balcetis said. But you can encourage people to listen to other perspectives and be curious about the veracity of their own.

...Just as we can look at an image and see things that aren’t really there, we can look out into the world with skewed perceptions of reality. Political scientists and psychologists have long documented how political partisans perceive the facts of current events differently depending on their political beliefs. The illusions and political thinking don’t involve the same brain processes, but they follow the similar overarching way the brain works.

...Our brains work hard to bend reality to meet our prior experiences, our emotions, and our discomfort with uncertainty. This happens with vision. But it also happens with more complicated processes, like thinking about politics, the pandemic, or the reality of climate change.

You might say - hey this is a neuroscience article, doesn't that undercut your criticisms about science? To which I would respond, no, this is just where neuroscience is philosophically interesting, and besides, it's not science I'm critical of, but the belief that it somehow dissolves the problems of philosophy.

Doesn't "fully explain consciousness" imply both? So if the scientisitc approach asserts that science has the capacity to, or will have the capacity to, do something which "is not the business of science at all", (i.e. understand the first person perspective), by claiming that it could fully understand consciousness, then this is a mistaken assertion. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I would say that if a coherent and plausible physical theory of consciousness, which delivers predictions which can be confirmed by experiment and observation, then neuroscience would have done all you could expect it to do.

All scientific theories are fallible and potentially subject to revision or even to being abandoned in light of some more coherent and plausible explanatory theory.

If something like this happened it could be analogous to the shifts from Newtonian mechanics to Relativity and QM, the latter two of which present new paradigms.

How is the very nature of causation a topic that is in the purview of the empirical sciences—rather than in that of the philosophical branch termed metaphysics?

To me this is a Hume 101 question. Succinctly explained, a cause is not a percept—and so cannot be empirical (as empiricism is understood in modernity). — javra

As Hume said we don't see causes. However I think it is arguable that we do experience ourselves as causal agents, and we do feel the effects of wind, sun, water and all sorts of objects on our bodies. These effects are felt as forces that warm us, cool us, push and pull us and so on.

In any case in the sciences and technologies causation is assumed in most of our explanations and doings, and working from that assumption complex and highly predictively successful systems of explanation, which are also (mostly) coherent with each other have been developed. What more would you ask of science?

It is inapt to ask for proof of scientific theories; proof is appropriate in logic and mathematics, not, for the most part, in science. What Hume showed is that causation is not logically necessary.

It is inapt to ask for proof of scientific theories; proof is appropriate in logic and mathematics, not, for the most part, in science. What Hume showed is that causation is not logically necessary. — Janus

Way too many folks on (& off) this forum don't grok this, and I don't understand why.

Apropos of Schopenhauer etc, there's a current media article “Reality” is constructed by your brain. — Wayfarer

I think it's too much of a stretch to say that reality is constructed by the brain; more plausible to say that reality is interpreted by the organism, and in the case of language-users, it is interpreted in common by various cohorts of culturally connected organisms.

Are we prepared to lose the idea that there is an independent (in the sense of independent of any and all beliefs) reality to be more or less correctly interpreted? If we did lose that idea, what then? Trumpian "truth" and "fake news"?

Way too many folks on (& off) this forum don't grok this, and I don't understand why. — 180 Proof

Right, and it is puzzling because it seems to be a fairly elementary realization. I guess it just comes down to being attached to habits of thought; and to wanting to confirm them.

The first part is mainly about optical illusions, but towards the end it gets into philosophically significant territory in talking about how people's inclinations and prior experience influence what they see. — Wayfarer

There's an old saying, "people see what they want to see", and it's very relevant because it discloses how one's intentions influence the way a person see the world. Put a number of different people in the same place, and ask each of them later what they saw, and there will be much difference.

From a scientistic perspective, we might say that different things attract the attention of different people. From an idealist perspective we would say that different people direct their attention toward different things, because they have different intentions. The former neglects the role of intention, the latter embraces it. When the role of intention is respected, it is completely acceptable to say that reality is constructed.

No, I would say that if a coherent and plausible physical theory of consciousness, which delivers predictions which can be confirmed by experiment and observation, then neuroscience would have done all you could expect it to do. — Janus

The capacity to predict does not constitute a full understanding. The ancient Greek, Thales, predicted a solar eclipse without fully understanding the orbits of the solar system. Clearly you over rate prediction as an indication of understanding. In reality the capacity to predict is only a small step toward understanding. I predict that when it turns cold in the fall, water will freeze. But being able to predict when water will freeze (when it gets cold) demonstrates very little understanding of the process which is the freezing of water.

Prediction is extremely useful, and facilitates the capacity to fulfill many of our intentions. But it doesn't fulfill the intent of the philosopher, which is to know and understand.

The capacity to predict does not constitute a full understanding. The ancient Greek, Thales, predicted a solar eclipse without fully understanding the orbits of the solar system. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is possible to predict (more or less) accurately on the basis of more or less accurate/ adequate theories, or even ad hoc theories which "save the appearances"; or in other words accurately describe the observed phenomena. So Newtonian mechanics gets men to the Moon, but Relativity is required for accurate global positioning.

What would a "full understanding" look like; how would we know whether the understanding we have is a "full understanding"?

In any case in the sciences and technologies causation is assumed in most of our explanations and doings, and working from that assumption complex and highly predictively successful systems of explanation, which are also (mostly) coherent with each other have been developed. What more would you ask of science?

It is inapt to ask for proof of scientific theories; proof is appropriate in logic and mathematics, not, for the most part, in science. What Hume showed is that causation is not logically necessary. — Janus

From the interpreted tonality, I get a feeling you might be expecting me to disagree? I don't. As a subtle reminder, I'm a die-hard fallibilist - which, as an epistemic stance, to me encapsulates logic and mathematics as well. Degrees of certainty ranging between perfect certainty and perfect doubt, with these two extremes not being obtainable by any ego. A different issue though.

My contention was and remains that the empirical sciences are founded upon a non-empirical (said for emphasis only) metaphysics - a metaphysical system of beliefs which are not in themselves, nor can they be, the subject of study for empirical sciences. And I listed causality as a prime example of this.

Personally, at least, I take the empirical sciences to be mute on that branch of ontology which classifies reality into physicalism, idealism, neutral monism, and the like. And, imv, so should it be. The elephant in the room, however, is that most of the scientific community (a guesstimate) also subscribes to some form of physicalism as foundational metaphysics. But then it somehow gets insisted by many that physicalism is not a metaphysical stance - but is instead a worldview which is substantiated by the empirical sciences ... which are, again, grounded in metaphysical understandings such as those of causation.

At any rate, my position, in sum, is that the empirical sciences are inescapably bound to a foundation of metaphysical beliefs. That empirical science devoid of metaphysical understandings is an impossibility. Do you find disagreement in this?

In the simplest possible terms, metaphysics is simply about causality. The more a priori truths & causal structure you discover about the world, easier it is to predict, dominate and control it.

To truly understand metaphysics is to make progress in answering the fundamental question of metaphysics "Why is there something instead of nothing ?" If you cannot answer the fundamental question of metaphysics what is the probability you are right in all the questions that come next.

Also, something we miss out when we discuss metaphysics is our assumption that we can discuss it using merely language. When we say metaphysics what we mean is 'metaphysics as explainable using language'.

The realist argument is that we perceive and understand the world as human beings. There is no view from nowhere.
— Andrew M

Given the attempted granularity of the discussion, I'd call this facile. It implies, for example, that all the means and methods for understanding natural science are founded/grounded in the being of human beings. Hmm. I guess when the aliens finally come to rescue us from our follies that we'll have nothing in common with them - yes?

Edit: Even jackasses like beer. — tim wood

My point was not that we wouldn't share commonalities with other beings. My point is that how the world is perceived and understood depends not just on the characteristics of the thing being perceived but also on the characteristics of the perceiver.

A familiar example that highlights this is color perception in animals.

The lesson is that whether we can generalize our claims (or not) is always an empirical question, since the perceiver is part of the context.

Carlo Rovelli makes a related point regarding mathematics:

If there is a ‘platonic world’ M of mathematical facts, what does M contain precisely? I observe that if M is too large, it is uninteresting, because the value is in the selection, not in the totality; if it is smaller and interesting, it is not independent of us. Both alternatives challenge mathematical platonism. I suggest that the universality of our mathematics may be a prejudice hiding its contingency, and illustrate contingent aspects of classical geometry, arithmetic and linear algebra. — Michelangelo's Stone: an Argument against Platonism in Mathematics - Carlo Rovelli

The realist argument is that we perceive and understand the world as human beings. There is no view from nowhere.
— Andrew M

"
Thomas Nagel’s primary aim in his book The View from Nowhere is to explore the various philosophical puzzles that arise from the tension between the subjective and objective standpoint. The subjective standpoint is the personal perspective of an individual person; it is her view of the world “from the inside,” the world as she sees it; it is her own private window on the world, so to speak. The objective standpoint is the impersonal perspective a person adopts when she conceives of the world “from the outside,” not as it appears to her but as it really is. From the subjective standpoint, a person is at the center of her world; from the objective standpoint, she is simply one of many people who all see the world as she does. Thus, Nagel also characterizes the objective standpoint as “centerless”; someone who looks at the world objectively strives to take in “the view from nowhere.”

Nagel is convinced that the tension between the subjective and the objective standpoints surfaces in many of the enduring questions of philosophy.
"

I agree with him. That's what I was referrring to. Many of the arguments in this and other threads are based on the conviction that science delivers just such a view. — Wayfarer

I know. That conviction is wrong. :-)

Science is simply a natural extension of everyday experience.

If a subject/object framing leads to tension and philosophical puzzles (as it does do), then maybe it's the framing itself that is the problem. Compare with the tensions and philosophical puzzles that Cartesian Dualism gave rise to in the past.

What would a "full understanding" look like; how would we know whether the understanding we have is a "full understanding"? — Janus

I don't know, I was not the one arguing that a "full understanding "is possible. But I think I've demonstrated through the use of examples, that the capacity to predict does not indicate that there is anything which could be construed as a "full understanding". So let's just look at "understanding" in the conventional sense of the word.

What I'm arguing is actually a very simple and obvious principle with an abundance of evidence. The fact that a person can use mathematics to predict an event, does not necessitate the conclusion that the person understands the event, in any conventional sense of the word "understand". Understanding an event requires knowing more about the event, then predicting it demonstrates, such as knowing how and why the event occurred. Predicting requires the simple step of applying mathematics to patterns of occurrence, which does not require knowledge of how and why.

I am not arguing that in all case where a person can predict an event, that the person does not understand the event. I am arguing that in some instances a person can predict an event without understanding the event. Because these latter instances are very true and real, we cannot conclude that the capacity to predict an event indicates an understanding of the event.

My point was not that we wouldn't share commonalities with other beings. My point is that how the world is perceived and understood depends not just on the characteristics of the thing being perceived but also on the characteristics of the perceiver. — Andrew M

I'd say that how the world is perceived and understood depends entirely on the perceiver/understander. The problem devolves - as it often does - to taking care to have definitions adequate for immediate purpose, and the ability to tell when they aren't. And it seems to me Kant addressed all of this in his critiques of pure and practical knowledge. Quantum mechanics under some interpretations adds its own twist.

As to Rovelli's M and considerations thereon: this is just an essay reflecting on the consequences of defining words in different ways.In passing I'll note that the "objects" themselves of mathematics are never perceived, never the objects of perception.

In sum, the distinction between how things seem and how thing are. "Things" suitably defined.